The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has threatened to expel Zimbabwe from the fund over debt arrears, is shifting its goalposts as part of a drive to punish President Robert Mugabe?s government, a state-controlled newspaper said on Sunday.

Zimbabwe says it has been making regular payments to the IMF and will clear its crucial arrears before a March deadline set by the fund to pay up or risk expulsion. The Sunday Mail newspaper said an IMF team now in Harare to review the country?s economic problems and programmes had suggested Zimbabwe?s difficulties with the fund were not over debt arrears but fiscal and monetary policies and targets.

Both government officials and the IMF team, which has refused to make any statements since its arrival last Tuesday, were unavailable for comment on Sunday. The Sunday Mail said the team from the IMF ? whose executive board in September gave Zimbabwe a six-month reprieve to settle its arrears or risk being expelled ? was being insincere in its dealings with Harare.

?Impeccable sources that have been closely monitoring developments between Harare and the IMF told the Sunday Mail that the Minister of Finance, Dr Herbert Murerwa, and the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Dr. Gideon Gono, should not be upbeat about the IMF visit,? it said. The paper quoted one source as saying: ?While the country has made tremendous progress in the settlement of its arrears that now stand at U.S. $10 million they (Murerwa and Gono) should not be upbeat about the current visit because these people and the institutions they represent tend to shift goalposts.?

?I have a feeling that the IMF will still produce a damning report probably on the country?s fiscal and monetary policies that they will say are not good for the country (...) So Murerwa and Gono need to be told that they are going to bed with insincere partners and the sooner they realise that the better for the country?,said the source.

The Sunday Mail said the IMF mission to Zimbabwe ? which is also probing the source of money that Mugabe?s cash-strapped government has used to pay its arrears to the fund ? had started compiling its report barely 48 hours after arriving. Last Tuesday?s the government-controlled Herald newspaper reported that Zimbabwe ? which since September has paid the IMF $ 145 million ? had forked out an additional $ 15 million since early December. This left Zimbabwe needing just $ 14.6 million to clear its arrears under the IMF?s critical General Resources Account and $ 125 under the Poverty Reduction Growth Facility, it said.

Gono has said the funds used for the payments to the IMF came from export earnings, inflows from expatriate Zimbabweans and locals working for foreign-owned organisations, who are paid in foreign currency.